Too late to mow hay

[Tim in New York]

My BIL never started haying until July 4 for his beef cows. I teased him about getting the first and second cuttings at the same time. We used to say that jokingly about the less energetic dairy farmers back when I was a kid that cut late. He would turn out the cows into the fields after that for the rest of the summer. He sold some of the small bales to horse people from that. His customers aged out and got rid of the horses, so that ended. But his hay always look pretty decent.

Tim

 

[rrlund]

We used to put up the bulk of it in July too. I remember going to my brother's place for the 4th one year. It started thundering and we had the first couple of loads of hay for the year sitting outside, so Dad and I went home real quick to back them inside.

When I was a kid, our family reunion was always the second Sunday in July. We were never done by then. I remember an uncle saying one year that he just had one little field to go. I was jealous to say the least. The next year, a cousin said he was all done. That was the earliest I'd ever known anybody to be done at that point in my life. I remember going to the fair about the second or third week of July when I was about 17. I was talking to two other guys I went to school with and one of them said they were all done and had even baled the field they'd been green chopping and were chopping second cutting. That was unheard of for me at the time.

I don't know when we got in such a hurry. It hasn't been too awful many years ago that we had such a wet spring that we couldn't cut any hay in June. I rolled up the first field on the 4th of July that year. I bought my first round baler in 79. I did a lot of custom the first five or six years. I remember leaving a 4th of July picnic to go do custom baling and baled a lot after the 4th most of those years. The real goal was to be done by the time the wheat was ready to cut.

 

[bmack95hd]

Guy down the road cut and baled last Thursday and Sunday. Any longer and the alfalfa might have been really dry. Bales are 4ft wide 5ft tall wrapped and tight as a drum. No idea what they weigh. I let him have the 14 free. Doubt he will get a second cut on this SWCO dry land.

 

[flying belgian]

That old growth is going to be in the next cutting no matter when you cut it.

 

[ss55]

Another alternative would be to hire someone to cut and bale it for either a share of the crop or cash payment. That would allow you to harvest the next cutting when your health improves.

 

[Geo-TH,In]

If you were to mow the dead hay, wouldn't you be putting nutrients back in the soil?

I feel your pain.

Do what you can considering the pain you are having.

 

[Bill VA]

Cut it, bale it and sell it.

 

[Leroy]

Freeby paper has 3 hay adds this week, did not read type or asking price. I actually say haying starting in April altho normal is middle of may and every month after, Should be second cutting starting in just a few days. Timothy did not starting untill about now for one cutting in fall or more likely harvesting for seed. May was dry for first part but the last week and this rains. Wheat harvest going strong now with straw baleing as well. What I think is going to be short is corn as a lot of fields were never planted because of rain. Some corn about waist high but the last of june some corn not over 6-8 inches tall. Western Ohio.